


Don't Fear What You Find

by SerotoninUp



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angry Chloe Decker, Angst, Episode: s05e08 Spoiler Alert, Fear, Gen, Insecure Michael, Jealous Michael, Lucifer (TV) Season/Series 05, Missing Scene, POV Chloe Decker, Scared Chloe Decker, Vulnerability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26068273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerotoninUp/pseuds/SerotoninUp
Summary: “You’ve done this before, haven’t you,” Chloe says flatly. It’s not a question; it’s a horrible declaration of truth. “Came to Earth pretending to be Lucifer.”Michael slowly claps his hands at her in mock congratulations. “Look at you, Detective! So clever.”Chloe and Michael have another conversation in the cave.
Comments: 68
Kudos: 337





	Don't Fear What You Find

“Enjoy the cave!”

Chloe grips the bars of her cage as Michael walks away from her, giggling to himself, no doubt pleased at how easily he got under her skin. She stands there for a moment, teeth clenched, and tries to push away the fears he so effortlessly dragged to the forefront of her mind. But his words slither and twist through her heart all the same.

_He hasn’t said it yet, has he? Even though you said it to him?_

She cries out in frustration, shoving against the bars, but they hold firm. She forces herself to step away from the cage door and drags her hands through her hair. She can have a breakdown later, after she talks to Lucifer, if it turns out that Michael is right—

“Focus, Decker,” she admonishes herself. She digs her fingernails into her palms and closes her eyes, taking deep breaths. Hope for rescue, but try to escape in the meantime: that’s her biggest priority right now. Everything else will just have to wait. She opens her eyes and resumes her perch at the smaller set of bars, picking up a sharp stone and digging into the crumbling wall with renewed desperation.

All too soon, the sound of footsteps echoes through the cave once more. Chloe hastily sets down her makeshift chisel and takes her seat on the rock, brushing dirt from her hands to hide the evidence of her escape attempt.

“Hello, Detective.”

Her skin crawls at the casual use of Lucifer’s nickname for her, at the way the word just sounds _wrong_ coming out of Michael’s mouth. She doesn’t give him the satisfaction of a response. She doesn’t even look at him.

A moment passes, and then he sighs at her, as if _she’s_ the one being ridiculous in this situation.

“Chlo-eee,” he wheedles, and God, that’s even worse than _Detective._ She shivers involuntarily and turns her head just enough to glare at him. He flashes that twisted grin at her, and the pink, gnarled scar crossing his face pulls at his skin.

_He won’t be impersonating me ever again._

Lucifer did that to him, she knows. Carved up his brother’s face and then barged into her home, bloodstained and distraught, to interrupt her spiraling existential crisis with one of his own. She hadn’t thought too hard about the implications of that statement, still too preoccupied with the bomb Michael had dropped about her miraculous origins.

It’s a vicious wound, truly, and it reminds her of Julian’s broken back, of Lucifer walking a terrifyingly blurred line between justice and vengeance, losing himself in self-loathing and slowly transforming into the worst version of himself.

_You’re not afraid of what his newfound invulnerability means? ’Cause you do know that we angels, we self-actualize, right?_

“Go away, Michael,” Chloe snaps, dropping her face into her hands.

The squeal of rusted metal tells her he’s doing the exact opposite. She jerks her head up, muscles tensing, ready to leap to her feet and run through the open cage door. But it’s already clanging shut, loud enough to make her wince. The knot in her gut swells as Michael steps closer and looms above her, dark and silent and menacing. Her hand instinctively drifts to her hip, to the empty space where her gun isn’t.

Michael smirks at her. “Still want to shoot me?”

“So, so much,” Chloe mutters, turning her gaze away from him.

He sits down beside her on the rock, too close, his arm pressed up against her own. Goosebumps break out across her skin. Her pulse picks up, quick and fluttering like the wings of a small bird, and a heavy, sick dread curls through her belly.

“Stop,” Chloe hisses, leaping to her feet. She presses her back against the cave wall, putting as much distance between them as possible, and folds her arms tightly across her chest.

“My apologies, Detective,” he chuckles, clearly not sorry at all. “It doesn’t really have an off switch.”

“How did you hide it before, then?” Chloe asks. “I didn’t notice it when you first showed up.”

He raises an eyebrow at her, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “You sure about that? You said you knew something was wrong as soon as you kissed me.”

He sounds almost… impressed, she realizes. As if he’s not used to people seeing through him so easily, as if pretending to be his brother is something he’s successfully done countless times before.

A chill slips down her spine as she considers the ease with which Michael wore Lucifer’s persona, and a memory of the book Father Kinley showed her during her ill-fated visit to the Vatican flashes through her mind. All those pictures of Lucifer, those coincidental tragedies and accidents, those terrible events throughout history…

What if Michael had been the one responsible for all of it?

A lump swells in her throat at the thought that Lucifer’s anguish over humanity’s vilification of the Devil might be the result of centuries of Michael’s twisted machinations. Her fingers twitch.

_God,_ she wants her gun.

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you,” she says flatly. It’s not a question; it’s a horrible declaration of truth. “Came to Earth pretending to be Lucifer.”

Michael slowly claps his hands at her in mock congratulations. “Look at you, Detective! So clever.”

He’s proud of himself. He came to Earth and committed terrible deeds in Lucifer’s name, rubbed salt in the wound of Lucifer’s eternal damnation, and he’s proud of it. Chloe’s stomach lurches, sickened by such casual malice. What kind of brother—God, what kind of _angel—_ could do such a thing? And why?

Her expression must betray her thoughts, because Michael gives her a sly smile and answers her unspoken question.

“Look, it’s been a long time since the Rebellion and the garden. Humanity tends to forget that the Devil should be hated and feared. Probably because my idiot brother only comes up here to eat and drink and fuck.”

He sighs and rolls his eyes skyward, clearly frustrated with Lucifer’s decidedly non-evil behavior. “So sometimes I just, you know, come down to remind you guys who the Devil really is.”

Chloe presses her lips together in a straight line and nods slowly. “So that’s why you’re here.”

“Ehh, sort of,” Michael replies, flipping his hand in a so-so gesture. “Wanted to make it a little more personal this time around. Usually I just go after his reputation.”

He smiles pointedly at her before continuing. “But now he has relationships. People who care about him. People with hearts to break and fears to exploit.”

So that’s why he initially targeted her. Chloe bites her lip, thinking back to those first few days, recalling the way she felt when he appeared at that shootout and she kissed him. Apprehensive, confused, suspicious, yes, but no fear. Something here doesn’t add up.

“But I wasn’t afraid of you when you first showed up,” she points out. “And I didn’t get the impression that you were trying to scare me, either.”

Michael spreads his hands in front of him. “Like I said, I can’t create fear. I can only draw out what’s already there. And you, Chloe...” 

He pauses and licks his lips, as if savoring the taste of her name. Chloe suppresses a shudder.

“You were surprisingly fearless, at first.” Something flickers across his face, some emotion that comes and goes too quickly for her to analyze. “I have to admit, it was a nice change. I mean, usually people can’t wait to get away from me.”

His laugh is short and harsh. “I’m not like my brother. He was the light of the Silver City. The morning star,” he adds mockingly. “And I was just the shadow that everyone feared to cross.” The bitterness in his tone is unmistakable.

Chloe ponders his words. Michael must naturally radiate some kind of low-level fear, she reasons. Sort of the opposite of Lucifer’s desire powers, the way his aura just draws people in, even when he’s not intentionally mojo-ing them.

Because he reflects their desires back at them, she remembers, thinking back on her conversation with Amenadiel. Lucifer reflects people’s desires, Amenadiel reflects their love of God, and Michael reflects their fears. He uses their fear against them, too, wielding it like a weapon. But weapons… weapons can be turned against those who wield them.

So what, she wonders, does Michael truly want? And what does he truly fear?

There had been genuine concern on his face when that suspect had nearly run her down with his car. And when he picked her up and flew her to safety, his hand had cradled her head so gently against his shoulder, as if she were precious to him. Maybe that was just good acting, but Chloe has a gut feeling that there’s something more to it.

Outside of Brody’s hangar, when she told him she accepted the changes that ‘Lucifer’ had gone through in Hell, his confusion had been real. But the tentative hope on his face had been genuine, too. In that moment, Michael had dropped his guard; his Lucifer mask had cracked.

And he certainly hadn’t faked his reactions when she played her seduction games with him at the precinct coffee station, or when she took him into her arms in the penthouse. He’d been borderline skittish at first, blindsided, as if physical and emotional intimacy were completely beyond the scope of his experience. But his naivety hadn’t lessened the hunger in his eyes or the yearning that suffused his every strained, breathless response.

The puzzle pieces fall into place, one by one, and suddenly Chloe understands.

“You wanted it. That love and acceptance I offered to you, when you were pretending to be Lucifer. You wanted it for yourself.”

She can tell she’s struck a nerve. Michael’s lips part in a soundless exhalation of surprise. Then he rises to his feet and stalks toward her, moving with that coiled, controlled grace she’s come to associate with all celestials. He presses his hands against the rock on either side of her and leans in close, eyes glimmering dangerously in the dim cave lighting.

“You should stop now,” he warns her. His voice is low, quiet, but every word shakes with barely-suppressed rage.

Chloe swallows hard, fighting against the renewed panic that wells up inside her at his sudden proximity. A memory surfaces, unbidden, of Lucifer leaning against the bar at LUX, surrounded by a ring of cops, their guns drawn and pointed at him. How he laughed, and the undercurrent of despair threading through that awful sound.

_All of humanity’s sins are the Devil’s fault, right?_

Michael had done that to him, had turned the Devil into humanity’s worst villain, and Lucifer had spent eternity despising himself, internalizing all of that hate and blame. Chloe’s fear recedes beneath the sudden onslaught of fury coursing through her veins, and she lashes out at the angel before her, every syllable barbed and venomous.

“That’s your greatest desire, isn’t it, Michael? You want to be loved instead of feared.”

He stands perfectly still, his eyes wide, trapped by the truth of her words. Chloe presses the advantage.

“And you’re afraid you’ll never have that. Maybe, after everything you’ve done, you don’t even deserve to have it. Maybe you’re just... _unworthy.”_

She knows she’s struck at the heart of his insecurities by his sharp intake of breath and the sudden clench of his jaw; he trembles as he steps away from her, retreating to the safety of the cage bars. Chloe’s breath comes in rough, shallow gasps, but she balls her hands into fists and stares him down from across the cave.

His mouth stretches in a mirthless, manic smile, his eyes cold and furious as he wrenches the squealing door open and steps through, slamming it behind him. He pulls an old, rusted key from his pocket, and his hand shakes as he locks the door, the key rattling in its chamber.

“You are going to regret that,” he snarls.

Chloe listens to his footsteps fade away and waits for her breathing to steady, for her racing pulse to calm. Then she turns to the small window, picks up her sharp stone, and once more begins to dig at the rock anchoring the bars.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song "Zvvl" by CHVRCHES.
> 
> Thanks for reading! <3


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